


To Save My Brother

by Lif61 (UltimateFandomTrash)



Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: "Pick Who Dies", Angst, Collars, Day 2, Dean Winchester Whump, Death, Gen, Gore, In the Hands of the Enemy, Kidnapped, POV Sam Winchester, Restraints, Sam Winchester Whump, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump, Whumptober 2020, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26746792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateFandomTrash/pseuds/Lif61
Summary: Sam and Dean are captured during a hunt, and certain conditions for one of them living are presented to them.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947223
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	To Save My Brother

**Author's Note:**

> **Whumptober 2020**
> 
> **No 2. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY**
> 
> **"Pick Who Dies" | Collars | Kidnapped**

Sam and Dean got jumped while investigating a bloody murder in an alley. In fact, the murder had been so violent that the body was mostly just a pile of torn and splattered parts, insides strewn everywhere. Sam had been leaning down, when suddenly he was kicked, and then grabbed, an arm tight around his neck.

Dean had been shoved into the gore, and was on his back, fighting whatever fucked up monster this was.

Sam struggled for breath, tried to flip his attacker, but they just released him, letting him fall.

A hand was held out, pinning Sam to the bloody ground.

Demons. Or angels. But no, angels wouldn’t do this.

Or maybe the murder wasn’t related.

He looked up at a woman dressed in business-like attire of tan, white, and gray. Her blonde hair was in perfect waves. Her eyes glowed blue.

Sam just groaned.

Angels. Of course.

Dean growled as he lost his fight. Both of them were red with blood that wasn’t their own. And then they were grabbed, handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away.

Sam and Dean fought the entire way, but that earned them punches, getting levitated and thrown against walls, or smashed hard against the ground. Sometimes a heeled boot was pressed down hard into his back, or against the side of his head, trying to cow him into submission.

It was easy to pretend it worked.

Because maybe it had.

Suddenly, the air was warmer, the wind no longer gently playing with his hair and clothing.

Sam was shoved, and then one wrist was uncuffed. But this wasn’t a mercy. It was getting attached to something else, a metal rail of some sort that Sam was leaning against.

And then, of all things, a metal collar was attached to him. He struggled and snarled, and Dean yelled for the angels to _fuck off_.

The blindfold was removed.

The room was clearly an industrial basement, with a giant boiler, shelves for storage, pipes. He was attached to a rail that looked like maybe it was there for safety purposes.

Sam almost laughed about that.

Yeah, he was perfectly safe.

And the collar. Oh god, the collar. It kept him restrained too, connected to a chain that led to a hook in the floor a few feet away. Sam carefully tilted his head to the side, not wanting the pull too much and have the collar strangle him. He saw that Dean was in the same situation, just as furious as Sam. Both were flushed, breathing heavy.

“So you’re kidnapping people now,” Sam said to the two angels standing before them. They inhabited the bodies of a man and a woman.

“No. Just you,” the man said. He was of pale skin, dark eyes, dark hair, spindly, but tall enough to be intimidating.

“Oh, and who came up with that fucked up idea?”

“Someone a lot more powerful than you.”

Sam’s gaped in disbelief as Dean stuck out his tongue. That earned him the punishment of getting slammed hard against the wall and rail with Grace.

“Show us some respect, boy.”

“Yeah, you first,” Sam challenged. “What’s with the collars anyway?”

Dean gasped. “Yeah, you getting kinky?”

The angels ignored him, and again, Sam wanted to laugh. They probably didn’t have a single clue what Dean was talking about. Somehow that just made their desperate, and despairing situation seem even more ridiculous.

“What’s next, hmm?” Dean asked, pausing to lick his lips. “Gonna get out the riding crop? Maybe some nipple clamps?”

Sam shifted to the side, and put his leg out to kick Dean.

 _Shut up,_ he mouthed.

Dean grimaced. Sam had a feeling his expression matched that of his brother’s.

“We have orders from high up,” the angel in the woman’s body said. “One of you has to go.”

The collar seemed tight around Sam’s neck, making it hard to swallow. Fear rushed up his throat, and it sat there, sickening him, stealing his breaths, controlling the very air in his lungs, the blood in his veins. Hair rose on the back of his neck, and a shiver ran through him. His gut was heavy with dread.

Sam and Dean looked at each other, gazes desperate. Sam’s upper lip trembled, and he finally got a shaky breath in.

“And just to make it fun,” the man said, “we’ll let you pick who dies.”

All of Sam plummeted. There was no longer a floor beneath his feet. No ground, no earth. Just an endless void of yawning black fear, his world tumbling and ending around him. Part of him was already dead.

Pick who died?

Sam didn’t want to die.

But he couldn’t let Dean die.

“Me,” Sam told them, voice a guttural murmur. “Kill me.”

“Sammy! No! _No_!” Dean cried. “No, fuck! Take me! Take _me_!”

Tears began to stream down Dean’s face, and Sam tried to hold his in. But eventually they fell, rolling down his cheeks, blurring his vision as they welled up in his eyes.

“Look, I don’t matter, okay?” Dean said, voice desperate, filled with a pleading note that was so strong it was almost sickening. “I _don’t_. I’m just the grunt.” Dean seemed to be telling this to Sam, even as he faced the angels. But then he did face Sam, and his brother’s bottom lip was trembling. “I’m no one. Or maybe I’m not,” Dean said. “I’m your brother. And this…” He inhaled, breath sharp and shaky. “This — it’s my job.”

“And what about _me_?” Sam cried, forgetting all about the angels. His whole world shrunk down to this moment, this moment where the possibility of losing his brother loomed over him, breathing on the back of his neck. Without him, without Dean, Sam would just die anyway. There would be no point in going on. “I need you, Dean. The world needs you. Cas — he needs you.”

Dean shook his head, and, still crying, he said, “That’s why I gotta do this. You all mean too much to me.”

“So, have you chosen?” the angels asked.

“Fuck you!” Sam cried. Then back to Dean. “Dean, please. _Please_. Don’t do this to me. You can’t—You can’t leave, man.”

“I can’t let you die again. What if… What if you end up down there? _Again_? I _can’t_ do that to you.”

“Yeah? Well, this’ll be worse. Living without you? Do you know how empty I felt when you were stabbed by Metatron? How I drank, and drank, and then you were _gone_? I can’t—I can’t… Not again. All those times you weren’t there, that you were _dead_ because of me: because I wasn’t fast enough, or—or smart enough, or—”

“Sammy, let me go.”

“Why do you always have to sacrifice yourself?!”

“I don’t. You’ve had your fair share of crap. Let me take this one.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” Sam asked, voice a near-whisper.

Dean gave a sad laugh. “Terrified.” Then, he breathed in and out deeply, and the tears seemed to clear from his eyes. Sam’s own tears had slowed, too distraught for his body to even act now. “Sammy, let me keep you safe.”

“It’s my turn,” Sam said.

“No. No!”

Sam turned to the angels. “Do it,” he said. “Just do it.”

“Don’t you dare touch him, you feathered dicks! You really think your daddy would want this, any of this? What does Heaven think of you? They probably only sent you because you’re expendable. They know we can kill angels, that we’re dangerous. Just face it, you’re at the bottom rung. Hell, I bet you’re not even on the ladder. You said your orders came from high up? Bet you can’t even see how high up. How does it feel being on the ground, down in the dirt and muck, and the bullshit that’s this dark, grimy world? What a vacation, huh?”

Sam tried to kick Dean again. He knew what he was doing.

His brother was antagonizing the angels so they’d kill him over Sam.

“Dean, just shut up!” Sam cried.

Dean ignored him. “You’re not angels,” he taunted. “You’re just like any other pathetic monster we’ve hunted. You don’t got your wings. You’re scattered, broken. And you know what? Your father’s a piece of shit. And what do you think that makes you?”

Sam was struggling, choking against the collar, metal cutting into his wrist.

He tried to get out words, to tell Dean to stop, to beg, and plead, and cry before the angels.

_Stop stop stop stop STOP!_

A strangled grunt left Sam, and he tried to tell the angels to take him.

But Dean had decided, without Sam. Yet again. His world wasn’t his choice. Sam was just the viewer of life’s shittiest movie, featuring gore, and blood, and death, and the lowest of the low, and losing everything over and _over again_.

The male angel approached, blade out.

There was nothing Sam could do as it sunk into Dean’s chest, silver shining like a star.

A wet crunch met Sam’s ears, and the blade was pulled free, a slight suction sound being made as the pressure in Dean’s wounded body changed, as the hole bleeding his life away began to spurt blood.

Dean’s eyes were on Sam.

His mouth was open, moving soundlessly, as if he wanted to say something.

Sam screamed, struggled till he was red in the face, till he’d cut through his wrist so deeply it was sore. Maybe it’d even kill him… eventually. Oh, wouldn’t that be a relief.

Dean exhaled, a tear falling.

Sam was keening, sounding like a wild animal. The angels undid his restraints, along with the body that had once been his brother.

Sam collapsed over him, and then pulled him into his lap, not even noticing as the angels left. And he could leave. He could. He was free now.

But Sam didn’t care. The world no longer fucking mattered.

He’d have to tell Cas. He’d have to tell Jody. He’d—

Sam wailed, yelled wordlessly, and sobbed till he couldn’t breathe. And yet his body didn’t stop. It knew. It knew Dean was gone.

Dean was gone.

_No no no no no._

A hole the size of his heart had been ripped through him. And god, that heart was still beating, still pumping blood, keeping him _alive_.

Dean’s blood began to slow, coagulating in his death. Sam knew eventually the… the body would grow cold.

Still he held him, tears falling onto his face as he looked at those dead, unseeing eyes.

“You stupid son of a bitch!” Sam cried. “Why couldn’t you just let it be me? Why?!”

Sam had the sudden urge to punch Dean, even though he was no longer there.

He’d done this to Sam. He’d chosen. He’d made the angels do it.

And for what? To save Sam?

What did it matter? Who in the sick world gave a _damn_ about him? The only person who had his entire life was gone, body empty of spirit and soul, of breath and life, and laughter, and snark.

Dean.

Gone.

“It should’ve been me,” Sam whimpered. “ _It should’ve been me._ ”


End file.
